


One Way to New York

by Shoulder_Devil



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fear of Flying, Gen, Podfic Welcome, Statement Fic, the vast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-13 01:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulder_Devil/pseuds/Shoulder_Devil
Summary: Statement of Nitin Jawahar regarding a transcontinental flight three years ago.





	One Way to New York

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maebmad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maebmad/gifts).

Statement of Nitin Jawahar regarding a transcontinental flight three years ago.

I’ve never been a fan of air travel. Something about the idea of leaving the ground to hurl yourself through the air at hundreds of miles per hour makes my pulse race and my breath catch in my chest. The thing is I love fast cars and the wind in my hair, but for whatever reason the thought of leaving the ground fills me with dread. 

I made it well into adulthood before I had reason to take my first plane ride. A client needed someone to be onsite before the release of their big project and you can’t exactly take the train from London to New York City and New York City was where I had to be. 

It’s a long story but I was the only one in my department with the necessary skill sets to deal with that project. I tried to argue that Silvia and Richard would be a better fit. Silvia had built most of the code and Richard handled most of the big data sets. They worked well together in the past on similar projects but it wasn’t in the budget to send two people and house them for the duration of the project. It was either send me or dump a very lucrative client. I thought if it was so lucrative couldn’t they afford it but I had been asked for specifically. My reputation precedes me and the head of Pinnacle Aerospace asked for me by name. Before I knew it, our travel agent Andi was asking me, “window or aisle?” and I was boarding a plane to New York. 

Apparently “window or aisle” was a rhetorical question as I found myself to be seated in the center. A young woman with a nose ring, blue hair, eReader, and no desire whatsoever to make small talk sat on the aisle. At the window sat nearly her opposite an almost unsettlingly friendly older white gentleman who spent the first hour of the flight glued to the window. His face plastered with a look of pure glee whenever he would chat with a flight attendant. 

I took a sleeping pill and tried not to think about how little it would actually take to puncture the thin metal skin of the plane and send us all to our careening to our doom. 

I did sleep, but not well, the dreams were fuzzy and indistinct. Not enough to jolt me awake but too much to let me get any restful sleep. It did pass the time though and when I woke up to use the toilet we were nearly halfway to our destination. 

Simon, as he introduced himself to me when I returned to my seat, asked if it was my first time on a plane. 

I cleared my throat nervously. “Is it that obvious?” 

“Oh, yeah!” he responded excitedly. “Been twitchy ever since you got on. Hey! I know just the thing that will calm you down.” Then he got up and offered me his seat.

I told him that I couldn’t. It was his seat and he clearly enjoyed the window. I would be fine in the center seat for the rest of the flight. 

He insisted, said it was nothing he hadn’t seen before and I should, “have a chance to look out into the Great Sky Blue.” 

Something about the way he said it, “Great Sky Blue,” made me feel disconnected from my body. Maybe I still had some of the sleeping pill left in my system, but I let him lead me to his seat all the while feeling like I was barely there at all. 

The view  _ was _ breathtaking. A vast dark ocean beneath a cloudless sky. It was peaceful but with a… malice to it I couldn’t quite place. Breathtaking was the right word for it because the longer I looked the stronger that sense of wrongness grew until it strangled the air from my chest. 

The horizon was gone, I couldn’t breathe. Air met sky met sea met  _ nothing _ . I turned to look back at Simon but he was gone. The woman with the blue hair in the aisle seat had disappeared too. The whole plane was startlingly silent save the steady rush of the plane’s engines in my ears. 

I tried to stand but my stomach lurched and I collapsed back into my seat. I thought the plane was losing altitude but it was just me. The plane flew steadily onward into the empty void but if I tried to leave Simon’s seat, I was swept under by vertigo. 

I opened my mouth to call for help but no sound came out. No matter where I looked there was that endless, empty sky. Or maybe it was the ocean. With my stomach doing somersaults there was no way for me to be sure which way was actually up. The window gave no indication of direction. I would be swallowed by a nothing so large as to contain everything. 

I don’t know how long I stared out in horror, unable to look away from the open window as the plane hurtled through the vast nothing of sea and sky. 

I must have been crying. It was the drip of water on my leg pulled my attention away long enough to notice the boarding pass stuffed into the seat pocket in front of me. Simon Fairchild seat 23A, one way to New York. I pulled it free with shaking fingers. Simon had been real. Or at least real enough to send me here with his own twisted version of a one way ticket. 

The sob clinging to the back of my throat turned into a rough bark of laughter. I crumpled the ticket in my fist and tore it in two. Ripping the paper sent a spike of agony through my skull and I clutched my head in my hands, hoping the ringing would stop. 

But it wasn’t ringing, it was crying. 

Grumbled complaints followed soon after. I cracked open an eye and saw the blue haired woman giving me a suspicious glance. She caught me looking and went back to her book without saying anything. I wasn’t sure I could have explained what I was doing to her anyway, so I didn’t try. I just shut the blind on the window and stared at the seat in front of me for the remainder of the flight. 

Simon Fairchild did not come back to reclaim his seat. 

During my time in New York I had nearly convinced myself that it had all been a dream brought upon by a combination of sleep aids and stress. I wasn’t looking forward to the return trip but told myself it would be fine: vivid dreams were a side effect of the medication. As long as I don’t take it again and avoid falling asleep on the plane I would be fine. 

Then I saw him again in the airport, Simon Fairchild, I’m sure of it. He was waiting to board a flight to Orlando. I did a double take, an older man heading to Florida isn’t exactly unheard of. But this was  _ him _ I know it. He winked at me and wished me a pleasant flight as I walked by. 

Two weeks on a ship may seem like a long time, but it was worth it not to set foot on another plane. 

Statement Ends. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] One Way to New York](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23207287) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)


End file.
